


and someday you will ache like i ache

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Takes place in some nebulous point after Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 08:24:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2644958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel turns on the light, and is wholly unsurprised to see Helena standing in the middle of the apartment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and someday you will ache like i ache

**Author's Note:**

> We reached out to AO3 user piggy09 to ask what the purpose of this is, or when it takes place, or why she wrote it. AO3 user piggy09 was not available for comment.

Rachel opens the door to her apartment to find herself in silhouette, waiting for her; hair spills out from her head like blood from a wound.

She turns on the light, and is wholly unsurprised to see Helena standing in the middle of the apartment, swaying from side to side to a song Rachel can't hear. 

"Hello, Helena," she says calmly. Helena tilts her head to the side and looks at Rachel, considering, before she flashes a slimy mouth of teeth at Rachel in some sort of grin-mockery.

"I like your eye," she says. " _Very_ pretty."  She purses her lips, makes a few mocking kissing sounds. Rachel moves to walk further into her apartment but Helena's head falls the other way and a knife flashes, brightly, from her hand. So Rachel stays where she is. 

Helena, on the other hand, walks closer and closer and closer until Rachel can almost  _smell_ her, blood and offal. 

"You sent me to them," Helena breathes, hungrily. "You let them do this to me."

A  _What_ leaps to Rachel's lips; she swallows it, says, "Helena, I don't know what you're talking about."

(Her voice shakes.)

The words aren't even out of Rachel's mouth before Helena's knife finds Rachel's jugular. It settles there, sharp and hungry as its owner, and Helena looks in Rachel's eye(s) like she is going to pull something out of them. 

"You did this," she says again, but less convincingly. "You took me from my  _sestra_." She pauses. "My  _sestre_."

"And how would I have done that," Rachel hisses, knowing it's stupid, not caring -- as if she could be cowed by an  _animal_ , no matter how sharp its teeth. "Your  _sister_ took my eye, I couldn't--"

Rachel stops the stream of venom spewing from between her teeth and looks at Helena, watches the shaking and the anger and the doubt. Doubt. Doubt.  _Right_. Rachel can work with doubt. She snaps herself back together and says, more softly but no less poisonous, "Perhaps you should ask her."

"No," says Helena, and then again: " _No_." The knife eats at Rachel's chin; she's bleeding, now, but that is not the same thing as losing at all.

"She loves me," Helena says, voice a shaking bleeding mess, and she's looking in Rachel's eyes like she'll find confirmation there -- as if Rachel knows anything about love, as if Rachel has any motivation to tell Helena Sarah loves her. Stupid animal. Stupid, stupid beast.

"Of course she does," Rachel says soothingly. Now is maybe not the time for gambling; then again, maybe it is. So she says, "That is of course why she came after you."

It pays off. Helena puts the knife down and stumbles one, two steps backwards. 

"Oh, I'm sorry," says Rachel, walking a swaying step forward. Helena gives ground; something inside Rachel screams, delighted. "Did she  _not_ look for you? My apologies. I'm sure she must have had a reason, after all."

"I hear Cosima's doing better," she says, like a bullet. 

Helena looks at her for a moment. Then she lunges. Before Rachel can blink she's pressed against the window, cold glass, and Helena's arm is an iron bar against Rachel's throat. 

"Stop," Helena growls, and Rachel laughs a harsh choked sound. She doesn't say anything else. She doesn't need to. Instead she looks at Helena's eyes -- she'd call the anger unfamiliar but she's seen its twin (and isn't that  _delightful_ ) in Sarah's eyes; they are twin dogs, frothing at the mouth, and Rachel would like nothing more to put them down.

But let a sick dog back into its pack and it spreads its rabies, 'til all its pack is madness-staggered. Rachel smiles, hungry, and does not look away from Helena's eyes. Helena looks back at her, just as hungry as Rachel, wearing it nakedly in her eyes and face and trembling skin. They breathe, almost the same, for a moment. Then something snap-cracks in Helena's face and her arm presses harder against Rachel's throat (can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe can't  _breathe_ ) while Helena looks at her with a sick sort of madness. She leans in close, breathes her atrocious breath all over Rachel's face, and croons, "Poor Rachel. What happened to  _you_."

"Your sister broke me and left," Rachel spits, breathless and suddenly furious,  _poor Rachel poor Rachel poor poor Rachel_ as if Helena is anything close to family. Angry, she redoubles her efforts to claw at the weak soft belly of Helena, heedless of how harsh the pressure is on her throat. "Do you think something about you makes you different?" she hisses. "You're not exempt. There's nothing special about you, that would make anyone stay."

She's out of oxygen; too late, she scrabbles at the soulless limb against her throat. Helena watches her, shaking but merciless, and Rachel has enough time to realize the expression as her own before the world goes black.

When she wakes, she is alone, sprawled out on the floor like a discarded doll. 

When she wakes, it is with a queasy uncertainty: for once in her life, Rachel doesn't know whether she's won or lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to be the girl with the most cake  
> He only loves those things because he loves to see them break  
> I fake it so real I am beyond fake  
> And someday you will ache like I ache  
> \--"Doll Parts," Hole


End file.
